What is IKEA’s stock price, and are they publicly traded? Ikea is one of the largest privately-owned brands in the world. Williams-Sonoma (NYSE: WSM), Restoration Hardware (NYSE: RH), and La-Z-Boy (NYSE: LZB) are publicly traded furniture companies that traders can invest in.
IKEA has been in business for 77 years as a private enterprise so don’t expect it to make its debut on Wall Street anytime soon. Even if it were to trade on an exchange, it would most likely stick to European exchanges like the NASDAQ Stockholm AB which has been around since 1863.
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IKEA Introduction (No Stock Symbol) Text Here
This Swedish company is known for their build it yourself furniture and meatballs. While you can’t buy IKEA stock, you can buy their furniture for your trading station. Need a desk? They got you. Need a chair? They got you there too. You’ll just have to build it yourself. But their stuff is pretty sturdy and a good price. You can even drink your morning trading coffee from one of their mugs. In essence, they can help you trade even if you can’t invest in them.
What Is Ikea?
Do we really have to explain this one to you guys? For those who don’t know, Ikea is a Sweden-based multinational conglomerate that designs and sells ready-to-build home furnishings. Chances are, you’ve at least seen or used an Ikea shelf or table in your life. If you’re truly lucky, you’ve the opportunity to build one of these with your own two hands.
Ikea is a globally dominant brand name that services Europe, North America, Asia, North Africa, and Oceania. Just how dominant is Ikea? In fiscal year 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company reported nearly 40 billion Euros in global revenues.
This was actually down from fiscal year 2019 due to widespread store closures in regions that were hit hard by the pandemic. Which would make for a good IKEA stock.
Ikea now has 378 global locations across 30 countries on nearly every continent in the world. The brand also has a dominant eCommerce business that attracts billions of visitors each year. They’re a legitimate home furnishings competitor to sites like Amazon, Wayfair, and Overstock.com.
With the classic national blue and yellow colors of Sweden, there are few brand logos in the world that can evoke the same reaction from people; no matter where you live. Who doesn’t love to go to IKEA? That’s a serious question. It’s such a fun store to visit.
Five Things You Didn’t Expect from Ikea
Ikea is far from just a giant warehouse store where you go to buy bookshelves or eat cheap food. Aside from its ready-made furniture line, Ikea is actually involved in a ton of diversified sectors around the globe, some of which may surprise you! So many options would have made for a nice Ikea stock.
So it’s unfortunate we can’t take advantage of that. Instead, let’s take a look at some different ventures that Ikea has its blue and yellow hands in. They not only have food you can eat at the store, but you can also buy food from Sweden there as well. Solar, homes, concept stores are just some of what they offer as well. But let’s delve into that further.
IKEA Stock of Their Stores
Food/Restaurant Business: We all know the cheap eats that Ikea has in its cafeteria-style restaurant for visitors. For most stores, the restaurant opens even earlier than the store does. So you know the menu has a very loyal following. Recently, Ikea made headlines by introducing a plant-based version of its famous Swedish Meatball dish across North America and Europe.
The success of plant-based brands like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat has spurned restaurant chains around the world to make meat alternative versions of their recipes. Regional variations exist as well such as kosher meatballs in Israel and halaal meatballs in Indonesia.
Concept Stores: Concept stores aren’t really as popular in North America. But in Asia and Europe, people love to go to different versions of famous brand stores. In July of 2020, Ikea opened a concept store in one of the global centers of fashion: the Harajuku district of Tokyo, Japan.
If there’s any area of the world built for cutting-edge fashion and concept designs, it’s Tokyo. The new store unveiled Ikea’s first foray into the fashion industry with its first-ever dedicated apparel line. Ikea also owns the MEGA Family Shopping Center in Russia. A behemoth of a mall line that covers 1.735 million square meters of land, and sees over 250 million visitors each year at the 14 different MEGA malls in the country. Most of the stores inside are owned by international retailers; with a typical split of 70/30 in terms of international and domestic retail brands.
Housing and Investing
Housing: Yes! Ikea actually designs and builds modular housing under its BoKlok brand of tiny houses. The venture has now come to North America where housing is at a premium in major metropolitan areas like California and New York. If you’ve been to an Ikea store and seen any of their showrooms, you know these tiny homes are stylish and well furnished. And for being about 200 square feet in size, they’ll run you about $50,000 USD.
Solar Panels: Ikea does solar energy as well; teaming up with a company called Solarcentury to deliver solar panels to households in the United Kingdom. The venture is right in line with something we’ll talk about later. Ikea’s on a quest to be net-zero in pollutants and emissions by 2025. While Ikea hasn’t yet brought its solar panel business over to a crowded U.S. market, people can reasonably expect this technology to be a part of its burgeoning housing business moving forward. Look out, Tesla!
Venture Capitalist: Ikea has an investing arm as well that buys various companies and brands to add to its corporate structure. In 2017, Ikea purchased the freelance labor marketplace called Taskrabbit and has since expanded the services into Canada. In April of 2020, Ikea purchased the artificial intelligence imaging startup company called Geomagical Labs. Which could be used to build up its augmented reality design experience on websites and in-store.
No IKEA Listing
Not only is IKEA not listed, don’t expect Ikea stock anytime soon. They have so much success as a private owned company. In fact, they’re one of if not the largest privately owned company in the world. I’d want to keep that to myself too. I have the say in how it’s run. And that’s what I’d want to keep.
As a result, don’t expect IKEA to go public any time soon. If ever. As much as I’d like to trade IKEA stock on their desk I built myself. While keeping myself fed and hydrated my dinnerware from their store.
Ikea and the Environment
Europe, and Scandinavia in particular, has been one of the global leaders in the shift from fossil fuels to the adoption of green alternative energies like hydrogen, solar, and wind. Ikea itself has pledged to be net-zero by 2025 in terms of its global delivery services. They already have a fleet of last mile delivery trucks from well known brands such as Workhorse Group and Lightning eMotors.
Ikea recently announced that by May 2021, its entire last-mile delivery fleet in the state of New York will be electric. The company purchased 40 new electric trucks from a company called Fluid Truck, an electric truck sharing business. Similar headlines are coming out of Los Angeles as well. Ikea invested in 50 new electric trucks to service the Southern California region.
Ikea is also planning to install a massive upgrade to its electric vehicle charging infrastructure at all of its retail locations. This is in direct response to the rise in demand from automakers such as Tesla, and soon Ford and General Motors.
The clean energy and electric vehicle sectors have received a huge uplift ever since the Biden administration has come to power in the oval office. President Biden has already pledged $2 trillion to build up America’s green energy sector. Companies around the country and the world have followed suit by focusing on becoming net zero by the end of the decade.
Scandinavian wind energy companies have been one such sector that has really taken the lead on the global stage. And it’s anticipated that much of Europe will have its industrial and manufacturing industries fully switched over to green energy over the next ten years.
The Negatives
Hey, as an investor, you know every company in the world has a bearish thesis, and Ikea is no different. There have been well-documented safety issues with some of its furniture that have resulted in the tragic deaths of young children. Other issues have been corrupt local management in places like Spain and France.
As well as the destruction of ancient tombs in China to build out its location in Nanjing. Still, there’s no denying the mountains of evidence for environmental awareness, charitable donations especially to global disasters, and philanthropic social initiatives, particularly to help children in developing countries around the world.
IKEA Stock Final Thoughts
If ever Ikea decides to become a publicly traded stock, you can definitely expect it to be one that is highly sought after with a rich valuation. Ikea remains one of the dominant brand names in the world. With annual global revenues north of 40 million Euros or roughly $48 billion USD at the time of this writing, it shows no signs of slowing down.
In fact, Ikea is still opening its easily spottable stores around the world; even during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, it opened the first two megastores in India, where it is estimated that 40,000 people attended the opening day at each location. With the expected global expansion to rapidly developing regions like South America, Africa, and Mexico, as well as further growth in China and India, Ikea is well-positioned to remain the name that is synonymous with affordable and stylish home furnishings. We really hope we can trade IKEA stock some day, for now, we trade other stocks until they become publicly traded.
